No fewer than 21 states in the country are currently without duly elected local government councils.
These states are running the affairs of local government councils with caretaker committees appointed by state governors, an investigation by Sunday PUNCH has revealed.
This is against the provisions of Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution which guarantees the operation of local government by democratically elected officials.
There are 774 local government areas in the country, but the efficiency of the third tier of government has been hampered by the actions of some governors who have been accused of mismanaging funds meant for the administration of local governments.
In the last few months, calls for local government autonomy have increased in Nigeria. President Bola Tinubu has also supported these calls. In May, the Federal Government approached the Supreme Court with a suit seeking to compel governors of the 36 states to grant full autonomy to the local governments in their domains.
Currently, the Federal Government receives 52.68 per cent, states receive 26.72 per cent, and LGs receive 20.60 per cent of the country’s monthly revenue allocated by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, which is domiciled under the Presidency, and is disbursed by the Federation Account Allocation Committee.
LG funds are paid into a joint account operated by state governments and local governments in their domains.
A former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Audu Ogbeh, who was recently interviewed on Channels Television, stated that the Federal Government should discontinue the payment of LG funds to such joint accounts, and move them to accounts solely operated by local government administrations.
“I cannot be sending you money that disappears. You don’t repair primary schools, you don’t do anything. The money vanishes and they say they are paying workers; for which work? Strolling around in the morning and drinking palm wine? These are the issues. Those failures are creating dangerous problems for the country,” he said.
He added that some governors appointed their stooges as caretaker chairmen for local governments, gave them stipends, and diverted large chunks of the money allocated for local government administration to questionable quarters.
